State Theatre Company and Adina Apartment Hotels. Space Theatre. 10 Nov 2015
This is a rollicking, fun and whacky end to State's 2016 season. Cast your mind back to your last attendance of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and the amateur troupe of actors chosen to perform at the wedding. Puck referred to them as "the rude mechanicals" and Australian playwrights Keith Robinson and Tony Taylor renamed them The Popular Mechanicals in jovial reference to the now largely forgotten journal for nerds, Popular Mechanics.
The show was born in the halcyon days of Sydney theatre when Nimrod Theatre was morphing into the Belvoir Street Theatre. The captains of industry then were the dynamic duo of director Neil Armfield and our beloved Geoffrey Rush. Rush directed the premiere in 1987 and put his indelible stamps of physical comedy and theatrical extravagance onto it. No bottom joke is too base, no fart too windy, no rubber chicken too horny to be in this show. Director Sarah Giles, her cast and creative team have resurrected the theatrical magic of The Popular Mechanicals with such success that the opening night audience was roaring with laughter for nearly the entire performance. Over the top is the right praise.
We follow the Mechanicals as they prepare their one-night performance for the newlyweds. Rory Walker as the anxious director doles out the parts to the odd-named actors - Bottom, Flute, Snug, Snout and Starveling. The actors then busy themselves at their day-job trades preparing costumes and props with an impromptu concert thrown in. As in the "Dream," there is a hitch when Bottom is turned into an ass, but actor Charles Mayer does hilarious double duty when Bottom is replaced by the cask-swilling professional actor, Mowldie. There ensues a delicious tongue-in-cheek comparison of the amateur and the professional - a never-ending discussion in the real world. All the fun was in the preparation and the actual performance by the Mechanicals was nearly anti-climactic. Persons involved with theatre will enjoy the in jokes.
What an exceptional cast of clowns Sarah Giles has crammed into this wooden O. Everyone has to multi-task in singing, sound effects, instruments, slapstick, and pathos. Attention must flit from one to the other as the stage is a cavalcade of Shakespearean gags and business. Tim Overton, Lori Bell, Julie Forsyth and Amber McMahon and the aforementioned thespians - bravo!
All's well that's lit well by Mark Pennington and Jonathan Oxlade's panoply of trap doors, colours, and props kept the eyes very busy. David Heinrich contributed the aural magic and the furniture was left unbumped thanks to Gabrielle Nankivell's choreography.
Don't go without this Christmas!
David Grybowski
When: 6 to 28 Nov
Where: Space Theatre, Festival Centre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Photography by Shane Reid
